|
Our managing director Travis Smith covers five (5) key questions anyone in a buying position should be asking a consulting firm or individual consultant to better qualify them prior to making the buying decision.
Read the full article at www.sqr1services.com/white-papers/how-to-solve-your-1-business-challenge
0 Comments
Monday Quickie - Your Desire for 'Work life Balance' is Hurting Both Your Career & Personal Life10/14/2019  Article was written by guest writer Trisha Aure
Many of us live two lives. These two lives run on parallel tracks to one another yet few of us understand the dichotomy which exists by having a work life and a home life which operate separate from one another. We’ve been told growing up these lives need to be mutual exclusive of one another where we don’t bring our personal life and issues to work and vice versa. This inevitably creates a variety of issues for us at both the home and office. The biggest issue it creates is our ability to grow as people which leads to our ability to grow as professionals.  Leadership is one of the hardest things a person can do professionally. There’s no manual, no playbook, no cliff notes that give leaders the ‘secret sauce’ to successfully lead the charge. Sure there are thousands of avenues one could go to learn more about leadership however at the end of the day it’s still a job that mainly rests on intangible actions like care, empathy, intuition and respect for the very people leaders serve
 Twice in my career I've been in a slump. Statistically I'm not sure where that puts me in comparison to others having to do with 'career slumps' however I can openly and honestly admit those two experiences were incredibly challenging and equally as eye opening in my personal and professional development. What is a career slump? It can be a lot of things. A career slump can be a period marked with stagnation, little to no growth, periods of failure, challenges with our mindset and passion to succeed. Career slumps are all of these things and perhaps none of them at the same time, it just depends on your situation. A career slump could include mediocrity, boredom for extended periods. Lack luster attitudes and or a general malaise where we 'mail it in' on the daily. These are characteristics of a career slump. What I've learned from my two career slump experiences was it was near impossible to get out of it until I understood what got me there in the first place. I'm nervous talking about this. Being vulnerable on a stage like social media isn't necessarily an enjoyable walk in the park yet I've learned that many others share my same struggles so I choose to offer my experiences in the hope that it helps others. Sharing also helps me understand myself better and become more confident with who I am, what I'm capable of and what my 'why' is for doing what I do. There, right there. That's the answer! Getting out of a career slump isn't some magical experience or event that gets you back on track, its sharing and talking about what you're experiencing, how you're feeling emotionally and being aware of how that's impacting you and your career. Whether we want to admit it or not all of us at one point or another will experience a career slump. No one is perfect and times of strife in this life, more accurately our careers, are inevitable. The key is to dealing with a career slump is acknowledging it, accepting that it’s real then acting to change it. Similar to the psychiatric process called the ‘five stages of grief’ how we handle dealing with a career slump is a process of admittance, understanding and then action. It's a lot of soul seeking and working through your feelings to try and understand your mindset and what brought you to your present place. Here's what has worked for me: 1. ADMIT: Recognize and admit things aren't great. Say it out loud. 2. PRESENT STATE: Ask yourself how you feel in this moment. Write it down. 3. EVENTS: Trace back the last 6 months to a year and unwind your experiences, successes, struggles to understand the chain of events which brought you to your career slump 4. DIGEST: Sit on this information for a couple days. How does it make you feel? Do you now know why you're in a slump? 5. SHARE: Go find two people to talk with. Share with them your situation and present feelings on the matter. (I know...this is a lot of talk about feelings and emotions. Sounds awful, right. The quicker you can get beyond that the quicker you'll find yourself on the road to confident successful empowered you) 6. KEEP GOING: Keep sharing your experience with people. The more the better. You'll begin to notice the more you talk about it the better you feel and more accepting you are of the situation. 7. TRANSITION: Now that you know what's going on start out every day with 20 minutes of mindset activities to get you on the road to a positive you (workout, yoga, meditate, do your favorite activity, listen to music, sit in silence, etc.) It’s all about cultivating a positive mindset which drives who you are and your actions for the day in front of you. 8. ACT: commit to yourself that the experiences you had leading up to your career slump don’t define who you are. In fact, they make you better! Now is when we need to make some changes to our career. Implement a new office schedule, get rid of work if you’re overloaded, take on a new project to get yourself out of your comfort zone. Maybe you need to find a new job! Whatever it is, the new you, the new focus must be different than what you were doing the past month. If we change nothing about our actions and mindset we’ll continue to be who we were during the slump. This eight step process doesn’t happen immediately but you'll begin to notice a change in your overall outlook and mindset after a couple weeks of this. Keep it up, don’t falter. As positivity and empowerment come back into your life so too will your energy to kick ass and take names in your career.   There’s one thing which has a direct impact to the success a business experiences throughout the year – hiring. Do it right, you’ll probably have a good year. Do it wrong, well, let’s just say you’ll quickly find yourself heading down crap creek without a paddle. Hiring is an art and a science combine. It’s a tricky process, so much so Harvard Business Review cited 80% of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions. Failing to hire the right people can also have a big impact to the company’s financials. According to Dice, an online job board, poor hiring decisions for employees earning $100,000 annually lead to an average cost of $250,000. Basically, if the hiring decision you make ends poorly you can expect that mistake to represent 2.5 times the cost of whatever the salary of the person is you are hired. If they’re at an executive level the cost is even higher. Long and short, your ability to make the right hiring decisions in 2019 will be crucial to the success of your business, your fellow employees, your newly hired employees and your own career. Approaching the hiring process with a strategic game plan allows us to increase our chances of successful hiring exponentially while overcoming fears and apprehension along the way. Previously I had shared in another article 15 hiring tips to find the best employees. 15 is a lot, who’s got time for that many tips! Therefore, I’ve summarized it to the top 7 most tips you need to take into consideration when hiring. For the full article and descriptions of each of these tips click here. Looking to hire successfully in 2019 Follow these seven tips: 1. Know & Share Your WHY 2. Know What You Want Before You Interview 3. Know Your Non-Negotiables 4. Hire Character Over Competency 5. Share Your Leadership Philosophy 6. Ensure Your Interview Process & Collaborators Are Tight & Timely 7. Challenge Your Own Mindset About the AuthorTravis Smith is the founder and managing director of Square-1 Engineering, a medical device consulting firm, providing end to end engineering and compliance services. He successfully served the life sciences marketplace in SoCal for over 15 years and has been recognized as a ‘40 Under 40’ honoree by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a top leader in Orange County, CA. Categories
All
Archives
April 2025
|
RSS Feed
White Papers & Articles
|
|
